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What the Ink? was launched at the Hay Festival, the first of its kind held in Dhaka, on November 21 at the British council. What the Ink? is an anthology of some aspiring writers from Bangladesh and some other countries who have at some point of other have resided in the country. For the past few decades South Asian writers are making their voices heard in the world literary arena. Our very own poet Kaiser Haq has already reigned the genre for quite some time now. Expatriate Bangladeshis like Adib Khan, Manju Islam, Mahmud Rahman, Tahmima Anam as well as Bangladeshi born British writer Monica Ali have paved the paths for the newer generation. What we see in this book is a swarm of aspiring writers who want their voices to be heard, their stories to be told. Fifteen writers anthologized their short stories, poems and excerpts from novels in the 185 page book, published by the Writers Block. The first story Gift can be mistaken for a drama on one of the TV channels. The writer Arup Sana...

His quest to learn what his eight children thought of his family and the way they grew up led the Nobel Laureate, Günter Grass, to write Die Box. Although the eight children shared the same father, they were born of different mothers. So they gathered around a table to reminisce their childhood. The twins Pat and Jorsch, who were the first born, were asked to talk first. Then came the little girl, Lara, followed by Taddle. Then there was one more girl named Lena from a different mother and Nana, Jasper and Paulchen. Die Box by Günter Grass, published in 2008, is known as his second volume of memoirs, the first one being Beim Häuten der Zwiebel or Peeling the Onion (2007). Die Box was translated by Krishna Winston in 2010 as The Box: Tales from the Darkroom. Winston is a professor of German Studies at The Wesleyan connection. The Box: Stories from The Dark Room is really about a box, a pre-war camera and the woman behind the camera. Her name was Mariechen. She had remained close to the ...